Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft Paint Stories Of The Week’

You were probably one of them, but millions of people around the world tuned in to watch the 2010 World Cup draw on Friday, all holding their breath and praying for their nation not to get a place in the ‘Group Of Death’. For me though, it was all of a bit of an anti-climax.

To start with, after I overheard a group of people referring to the ‘Group Of Death’ with sheer terror in their voices, I had imagined a horrible fate awaiting the two teams who fail to escape the clutches of the group. More specifically, some sort of sacrifice to the Gods on Table Mountain. Apparently not though. Apparently the two teams just fly back home when they are knocked out. How rubbish is that? At the very least FIFA surely should dish out some form of humiliation. Perhaps they could make both teams go head-to-head on Takeshi’s Castle, or simply force every one of their players into to taking on a cameo role in an episode of Hollyoaks.

Anyway, that was my first disappointment. My second was the way the draw was conducted. Seeing as it was South Africa, I had imagined a more extravigant and dangerous occasion. Giraffes, trained to pick balls out of the mouths of lions. Rhinos juggling balls whilst riding unicycles. A draw-fixing scandal involving one of the South African cricketers. Stuff like that.

Not a bit of it. Instead, we had Charlize Theron (I assume attempting to mimic the potential dialogue of a girlfriend forced by her boyfriend to watch the draw) offering up some of the most atrocious acting of her career to date, as she went into airhead mode in a frankly horrendous half hour exchange with a generic Frenchman supplied by FIFA.

Brazil were drawn in what was being billed as the ‘Group Of Death’, alongside a rubbish Portuguese side that nearly didn’t qualify, an African team, and North Korea. It was the second time in an evening that the term ‘Group Of Death’ had failed to live up to my estimations.

Anyway, the above is just me warming you up to the idea of a Microsoft Paint Story Of The Week about the World Cup. If you’re interested, it’s also perhaps the longest introduction i’ve ever written. For anything. You’re probably not though, so i’ll cut to the chase.

About a week ago I heard that Plymouth and Bristol had launched ‘ambitious bids’ to be named as host cities for England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup. To say I was surprised to hear this would be an understatement.

The truth is, with the exception of a handful of ‘lower-league’ teams, the Westcountry has never really been taken that seriously as a football place. I guess it doesn’t help that most sporty kids from that part of the world are either plonked in a boat and told to go and catch dinner, or simply end up playing a game with a different shaped ball.

So, what does the Wescountry have to offer the visiting nations in 2018? To find out, I went down to Plymouth last week to see if I could steal some of the promotional material the two cities plan to use for their bid. Using a crafty Jethro disguise to get past security at Plymouth County Council’s head office, this is what I found…

What a joyous picture they have painted. FIFA see the World Cup as the coming together of nations, all united by football. It seems that the Westcountry not only intends to unite the world with football, but with everything else that that lovely part of England has at its disposal.

Cadbury's Caramel Bunny: Backing The Bid

North Korea will be able to set their worries of any ‘Group Of Death’ to one side, as they enjoy the musical stylings of bumpkin farmer-band The Wurzels. Apparently the ‘Combine Harvester’ singsters have become tremendously popular in the country during Kim Jong-il’s regime, mainly because there is no possible way in which a bunch of stinking farmers can be sexualised. If they qualify, it looks like the North Koreans are in for a treat come 2018.

The game of skittles will play its part too. For anyone who doesn’t know what skittles is, it can only be described as rustic ten pin bowling. However, unlike ten pin bowling, it is obligatory for the bowling surface to be as uneven as possible (a cow field will do), and you can’t play it unless you’ve drunk at least eight pints of ridiculously strong cider. In the poster you will see that Argentinian pocket-rocket Lionel Messi is getting a lesson from walking beard, and famous Westcountry TV presenter, Justin Lee Collins. Good times!

Talking of cider, in the true spirit of the World Cup (and having heard of his inability to drink alcohol without falling flat on his face), Ian Holloway has decided to take poor old Ledley King under his wing, in an attempt to teach him how to cope with his nan’s home-brew. Proper job!

However, the Westcountry isn’t all cider, skittles, and farm-related music. It can be extremely quaint and civilised too. The beautiful image of Kaka and Patrice Evra sharing a cream tea in the countryside is surely all the proof you need of that. Also with the Westcountry’s famous daughter, the Cadbury’s Caramel bunny, offering her experience and dulcid tones to the advertising campaign, the operation to get the nation on-side will be like taking candy from a baby.

So, come 2018, don’t be surprised if you find yourself watching the World Cup draw live from Plymouth. Perhaps Bill Bailey will be the host, with the groups being drawn via some sort of elaborate apple bobbing competition.

I’ve ripped the title for this week’s Microsoft Paint Story Of The Week straight off the DVD covers of popular US sitcom Friends. That is to say I’ve copied the style of the show’s episode titles. I am obviously not insinuating that there is an episode out there in which the tubby Newcastle United owner moves in to share with Joey, resulting in an initial mutual appreciation for each other’s appetites, but spiralling out of control when Ashley decides to turn Central Perk into New York’s biggest Sports Direct store. No, sadly that episode doesn’t exist. It probably should though.

However, there is every chance that your local coffee shop is being turned into a Sports Direct as we speak, such is the expansion of Ashley’s no frills empire. Newcastle fans can relate to that. A week or so ago, the tat-peddler announced that their famous football stadium would no longer be called ‘St. James’ Park, but ‘Sports Direct.com @ St.James’ Park Stadium’. Yes, that’s right, it’s the first time in the history of football that a stadium has been given an email address instead of a name.

The Newcastle fans don’t like it, but this name change got me thinking last week. Where next for The Magpies? I mean, clearly this man has the shell of an armadillo. He sits through thousands of people abusing him every week, accusing him of not leaving them any of the pies (in a roundabout way), and has turned a tiny sports shop in Maidenhead into one of the planet’s most recognised sports retail outlets.

With that in mind, would you put it past the portly magnate to turn up the heat even further on this branding exercise? Well, this week I sent my finest reporter in the field to have a little snoop around Ashley’s office for clues. Successfully gaining access to the building by posing as the Krispy Kreme delivery man, our reporter found the following sketch tucked away under a Dominoes menu in Ashley’s drawer. As not to raise suspicion, he left Big Mike’s blueprints where they were, and instead decided to reproduce them with his typical flair in Microsoft Paint.

Yes, that’s right, Newcastle fans. Not only has Mike Ashley decided to name your stadium after his chavtastic sports emporium, but it also now looks as though he is going to use the Newcastle United playing staff to flaunt his tat. He’s obviously given it some thought though, as he appears to have picked exactly the right players to model each of his brands.

You will see that Joey Barton is now the new face of Kangol and Lonsdale. Well I say ‘face’, but given that the target market for those two brands is the UK’s world-famous ‘Hoodie’ population, then it is unlikely that you’ll be seeing much of Joey Barton’s mug from now on. It’s now more likely to feature on a grainy, pixelated image taken from a shopping mall CCTV recording, and played back on Crimewatch. Not that Joey will have to familiarise himself with that of course.

The image depicts Barton, clad in Kangol and Lonsdale gear (or perhaps ‘clobber’, I’m not really sure what a Hoodie would call it) nonchalantly kicking a coke can across the pitch, whilst texting his mates to organise the ambush of a pensioner after the game. You get me blud?

Meanwhile, as a striker who decided to move into midfield to look for a few more fights, Alan Smith is perfect to promote Sports Direct’s main boxing brand, Everlast (although I’m sure that Ashley will be kicking himself that the club let Lee Bowyer go). As you can see, he’s doing a smashing job, and has even started to get into character by calling himself ‘The Smudger’. Expect Smith to continue his transformation by starting to hold pre-match press conferences, in which he trash talks the opposition’s midfield players, calls their wives ugly, and frequently refers to himself in the third person.

Acquiring the Dunlop tennis brand was also a major coup for Ashley, and he must be over the moon to have at the club a ready-made model for his tennis gear in Jonas Gutierrez. Offering the sort of long haired, dark-skinned, Latin flair that is a relative pre-requisite for becoming any good at tennis (apparently the LTA are still unsure how Andy Murray got through their ‘fit and proper person’s test’, which involves being a tennis coach for 6 months and sleeping with at least 6 rich housewives), Gutierrez can be seen here going for a cross field passing shot into the path of the ambling Joey Barton. In contrast to Smith, expect Gutierrez to hold his press conferences post match, in which he will speak mono-syllabically, refer to ‘my game’ in every sentence uttered, and show no sign of a personality whatsoever.

Finally there’s manager Chris Hughton. Acutely aware that Hughton doesn’t sit very high in the estimations of many of the Toon Army, Ashley has decided to go all Tyra Banks on his gaffer’s ass (girlfriend) and give him a new look. Having spent hours mulling over the shop’s extensive range of tracksuits, trainers, and cheap socks, Ashley had his lightbulb moment – he would attract more young Geordies to the club by turning his manager into a skater.

Dressed from head to toe in ‘No Fear’ clothing, Hughton appears pleased with his new look, and clutches his board as he barks out orders from his technical area. In a few months time, when he’s honed his skills and learnt from the 14 year olds at the local skate park, Ashley plans to ask his manager to jump a Sports Direct logo during the half-time of each home fixture, with the logo increasing in size as the season progresses. This being the case, expect words like ‘gnarly’ and ‘epic’ to gradually start creeping into Hughton’s press conference terminology, and for him to be ‘stoked’ after each Newcastle victory.

So, Newcastle fans, it sounds like it’s going to get worse before it gets better then. However, with a free pair of Donnay socks with every beer you buy, it’s not all doom and gloom now is it? You’ll be drunk, have warm feet, AND you’ll be able to watch a grown man crash a skateboard into a giant logo! Sounds like a good afternoon out to me.

As I have mentioned before, the wonderful blogging software I use to tap out the sort of rambling nonsense that you are about to put yourself through also offers me the ability to see ‘behind the scenes’. Unlike the extras on your ‘Transformers’ DVD though, this unfortunately does not allow me to see Megan Fox in her smalls, rolling around on a beach in the South Pacific. However, what it does allow me to do is to monitor the search terms that people use to get to my wonderous site of footballing irreverency.

This being the case, if you have seen my article’s title in your search results, and arrived here today expecting to read a peice dedicated to a new member of Optimus Prime’s robot gang, then I’m afraid that Google has let down in your quest this time. If however, you just wanted a picture of Megan Fox draped over a motorcycle, then feast your eyes on these apples!

Anyway, let’s have a bit of fun, and ensure that I get a regular stream of Transformers fans arriving here in disappointment. You see, I am told that Google Search works by making a note of keywords in the title and body of any given article, bumping your entry up the results list if you’ve mentioned the searched terms more than other sites have mentioned them. Considering this, and the fact that (including the title) there have already been six Transformers-related references (now there are seven) in the first three paragraphs of this article, I wonder what will happen if I do this…
Transformers! Revenge Of The Fallen! Optimus Prime! Robots hitting each other! Shia La Beouf is constantly in a panicked state! Michael Bay makes rubbish movies! Transformers! Robots in disguise!

Let’s see how that pans out then…

Anyway, those are the finer points out of the way, let’s move on to the main course of this banquet of insight. As I mentioned in my Premier League Predictions, last week I booked a train ticket for Eddie’s Football Blog‘s chief reporter to go down to Portsmouth and investigate why Pompey striker Aruna Dindane has suddenly become a player able to score a Premier League hat-trick.

You see, after the player’s frankly comical display against Spurs a few weeks back, where he showcased an array of finishing that would shock even Chris Iwelumo, I smelt a rat. You don’t just transform (see, I used that word again!) over night. What had happened to the Ivorian? Why had he suddenly started to find the back of the net instead of the car park?

As ever, our reporter was without any form of camera, so has had to resort to the pixel-perfect imagery that can only be offered by Microsoft Paint, in order to depict what he saw in Portsmouth that day. Below we can see his findings and the truth, I’m sure you’ll agree, really is shocking…

You might need a minute to take all of that in. I know I certainly did. Deep breaths…

As you can see, our reporter must have tailed Dindane to the secret lair of Pompey Director Of Football Avram Grant (aka Baron Silas Greenback), which (as we previously discovered) he has set up in the city’s Blue Reef Aquarium. Since that discovery, it appears that (alongside plans to develop the club’s academy) he has also developed a concept he once saw in an Austin Powers movie a few years ago – namely, sharks with freakin’ lazers attached. What this means for mankind, I can only speculate. However, given that it has nothing to do with the Ivorian’s form, we better leave that to MI5 (or MI6. If i’m honest, I never really know which one is which).

So, why is little Aruna visiting the den of his evil super-villain boss? The truth is that Greenback has also devloped what he calls a ‘Striker’s Serum’. Initially he developed the serum to help him ‘score’ with women, as it became apparent that evil toad looking villains cannot pull girls, even on a night out in Portsmouth. However, upon testing his potion, it came to light that not only can it help a man score with women, but it can also help with scoring in every other sense of the word. The serum can make an individual become an expert at keeping a tally during darts matches in the pub, composing music and, most importantly in this case, hitting the onion bag on the football pitch.

It all makes sense now. Greenback, in a desperate attempt to keep Pompey up, has started injecting the Ivorian with a scientific concoction that is guaranteed to get him scoring goals. Like Big Sam’s masterplan, The Baron’s scheme surely cannot fail.

The picture shows club doctor Nigel Sellars readying Dindane for his latest shot of the good stuff. Greenback (who is watching on, cackling in delight, and sporting a grey suit he borrowed from his friend Dr. Evil) had hoped not to get any of the staff involved in the experiment, but ended up having to draft Sellars in after it emerged that his evil crow henchman was unable to administer an injection due to having a pair of wings and no opposable thumbs. It would have been a total mess, with needles and feathers everywhere. Plus, he’d done a bit of sight-seeing earlier in the week, and got stuck at the Tower of London after he was told that the building would fall down if he dared leave.

As ever with the masterplans of Baron Silas Greenback though, there is a problem. The serum doesn’t appear to be quite right. Having scored a hat-trick after his first dose, Dindane failed to hit the target during Saturday’s loss to Blackburn. However, he did end up waking up on Sunday morning with three Swedish underwear models in his bed. Technically then, he ‘scored’ successfully, but it just wasn’t the right type of scoring.

As a result, it looks like poor old Avram will have to go back to the drawing board, otherwise he might find that Dindane turns up to Pompey’s next match having composed a beautiful piano concerto, but is still unable to hit a cow’s backside with a banjo.

Out of the ten fixtures that banged on my door last week, demanding to be predicted, seven were sent home happy. Ok, I didn’t get the final score right for any of them, but that’s not important. Even with a badger equipped with a wide range of hip-hop dance moves backing them up, I don’t think many people saw Fulham putting three past Liverpool. So, I’ve excused myself.

Having said that, if I get a couple of final scores right this week, but not many correct outcomes, there’s a good chance i’ll introduce next week’s predictions with a paragraph professing the skill involved in predicting correct final scores. You see, much like Robbie Keane and his assessment of the current Spurs squad, I sometimes find myself sugar-coating my opinions.

I’ve set the bar with 7 correct outcomes. Can you beat me?!? Actually, I’m sure you can. I’m just doing that ‘challenge their ego’ thing to try to get you involved in a prediction contest.

Are you ready?!? I’m doing it again. Sorry, I’ll stop. There’s actually no need to be particularly ready. It’s not as if you’re about to go for a sky-dive (unless you are. In which case, I’d advise you start concentrating on that instead, because you’re about to throw yourself out of a bloody plane. You mentalist!).

In the last few weeks Aston Villa have dressed in black, hid in the shadows, and snuck their way silently up the table. This is made all the more weird by the fact that, at the time of writing this, their form for the last 6 games reads LDWDDL – translating as 6 points from a possible 18, which isn’t hugely impressive. However, they’ve still managed to join the chasing pack just below the top four which, considering the aforementioned form, is mighty impressive.

This phenomena can be explained either by Martin O’Neill having trained the club in the art of the Ninja, or by the fact that the top four have performed a little more inconsistently this season.

Either way, Bolton should watch out for the crane kick to the gonads this weekend, which I feel is undoubtedly coming their way.

Verdict: 2-1

Blackburn vs Portsmouth

I hold my hands up. Aruna Dindane last weekend took my snide, mocking words and shoved them firmly back down my embarassed throat. He was majestic, and took his hat-trick well.

However, did anyone else find this sudden change in the Ivorian’s form all a little too dramatic? I certainly did. This is why I sent my chief reporter in the field to Fratton Park this week to find out what was going on. His findings will be reported in this week’s Microsoft Paint Story Of the Week, so watch this space. It is truly shocking. Can you handle the truth?! (Sorry I really must stop treating you as if you’re a cinema audience watching trailers to the summer blockbusters).

Those of you who watched Match Of The Day 2 last weekend would have witnessed a quite frightening report from Kevin Day (a man created by combining bits of Madness front-man Suggs, with a zombie from Shaun Of The Dead) on Burnley’s ‘ladies day’.

If you didn’t get a chance to see it, try thinking of an episode of ‘Booze Britain’, but dedicated entirely to women, and set in a bleak northern town. I can only assume that the male Burnley fans had decided to spend Saturday afternoon shopping for their halloween costumes (although they could have got a fair few pointers from some of the scary old bags at the stadium, that’s for sure).

This week against Manchester City, expect the Burnley fans travelling to Eastlands to revert back to form, with plenty of drunk men cosigning their Halloween masks to the back of the cupboard in order to roar their team to their fifth away defeat of the season.

Low on confidence, and missing key players, ‘Arry’s fragile Spurs troops would have wanted an easier fixture than Sunderland following a derby-day drubbing by an Arsenal team with a point to prove. Even though pocket goal-machine and glamour model afficionado Jermain Defoe is back from his suspension to give his club a boost, The Mackems team is loaded with ex-Tottenham players, all looking to prove Spurs wrong for flogging them.

Darren Bent will want to prove that he really is better than Redknapp’s wife, Andy Reid will desperately want to prove to the Spurs fans that he’s not the ‘pie muncher’ they’ve always said he is (it’s pretty obvious that he knows where the nearest Greggs is though), and Steed Malbranque will want to reinforce the question that most Spurs fans have been asking since he left… “Levy, why the hell did you sell him?!”.

Teemu Tainio will just want to angrily kick people. That’s what Teemu Tainio does. However, in the absence of Kasier Soze and Lee Cattermole, he’ll be the ex-Spurs player with arguably the most important job of all.

Verdict: 2-2

Wolves vs Arsenal

Arsenal can be compared very easily to Hogwarts, the wizard’s school attended by Harry Potter and his chums. Like Hogwarts, Arsenal have a Dumbledore professor figure at the helm attempting to teach all the young minds that walk into the youth system the way of mastering the wizadry of football.

He has many good students at the club, who have all clearly practiced their skills on a regular basis. However, they have one shining Harry Potter style light at the centre of it all, in the shape of Cesc Fabregas. Like the character, Fabregas can perform acts of brilliance that everyone else at the club can only admire with bewildered amazement. Let us not also forget that he often has to carry the weaker students through difficult times (at this point I should probably compare Niclas Bentner to Ron Weasley, and Emanuel Eboue to the little girl).

This weekend Fabregas and his wizard pals visit the den of a pack of bloodthirsty Wolves. Now, we all know that wolves like to prey on the weaknesses of small children, and I expect this pack to do exactly that on Saturday – snarling and snapping at the heels of the frightened youngsters. However with a wizard at the height of his powers at their core, mere Wolves will be no match for Wenger’s young magicians.

Verdict: 0-3

Chelsea vs Man Utd

It has been noted in certain places that Sky tend to make a bit of a song and a dance about a live game pitting two of the ‘Big Four’ teams up against each other. Flashy lights swooshing across the screen, dramatic music, and immense over-exaggeration over the importance of the seventh day of the week (i.e. ‘Mega-Super Amazing Sunday’ or something else just as ludicrous). Prior to the game, the tiny studio is packed with the brilliant minds of Jamie Redknapp, Richard Keys, and Andy Gray, and the viewer is ‘entertained’ (for what seems like an eternity) by three grown men drawing arrows on a virtual pitch, and talking incoherently about the brilliance of the two teams (who both, funnily enough, have made their employer one of the richest companies in the world).

The trouble is, with all the hype, these games are often a complete snore-fest. The recent Chelsea vs Liverpool game was so boring that I ended up being distracted by a repeat of Deal Or No Deal on our other telly (a fat man from Wolverhampton was sent home with 50p after he was ‘convinced’ big money was in a particular box, and thought that 5k ‘wasn’t a fair offer’. Riveting stuff).

This time though, I actually think that we have a really good game on our hands. Two teams playing good attacking football, and they are definitely the two teams who will be contesting the title this year, so there’s the added spice right there.

If Didier Drogba stays on his feet long enough to perform as he has been recently, I’m backing Chelsea for this one.

Verdict: 3-1

Hull vs Stoke

I like Hull’s manager Phil Brown. He’s an eccentric, and we don’t get many of them in Premier League nowadays.

So what if it was their start to the 08/09 season that kept them up last year? Does that really matter? No. What matters is that this earpiece loving, karaoke singing, half time team-talk on the pitch conducting Sam Allardyce prodige got Hull City promoted to the Premier League and then kept them there. That should be enough for the Hull board, fans, and players to show him a little respect in the tough time they’re having at the moment. The dreaded vote of confidence is always an ominous sign though.

This is one of those games that I wouldn’t normally give a damn about. But for Phil Brown’s sake I hope Hull can overcome the bus that Stoke park in front of their goal.

Verdict: 2-1

West Ham vs Everton

West Ham’s new striker Alessandro Diamanti has a bit of the Paulo Di Canio about him. Great touch, good finisher, and also a bit of a nutter. After a bit of gentle ribbing from his new team-mates for being the only member of the Hammers squad to use a hairdryer, the Italian reacted not by returning the banter, but by getting a grade 1 all over. This begs the question though, if Diamanti really is that suggestable, what else can his team-mates make him do?! Ideas below.

After a win in midweek, West Ham are unbeaten in three. Everton, by contrast have just suffered another injury set-back to midfield string-puller Mikel Arteta, which won’t improve the spirits of a team who last won a Premier League game back on September 26th.

It’ll be a hardfought encou… Stop! Hammertime.

Verdict: 2-1

Wigan vs Fulham

As I noted in my introduction above, I was pretty pleased with myself for predicting Fulham’s win over Liverpool last week. However, that was all soured by Wigan, the Premier League’s most unpredictable team, living up to their tagline.

That being the case, I am tempted to predict a Fulham win (because secretly I think that Wigan will win). However, now i’ve revealed my strategy on the world wide web, I’m sure that Wigan’s unpredictability radar will spot it and then force the team to carry out exactly the opposite.

Therefore, I am going to just go with my gut instinct. Wigan have had some big results at home this season, and Fulham are playing away in the Uefa League (or whatever the Uefa Cup is now called) on Thursday, so may be a bit sleepy when it comes to dealing with my man Rodallega (by that I mean he has been in my fantasy team this season. I transferred him out though, so technically it should be ‘my ex-man Rodallega’. However, that sounds a bit gay).

Marlon King is sidelined.

Verdict: 3-1

Liverpool vs Birmingham

Liverpool fans. I’m sorry, but this one’s the nil nil. And you can’t quote form to deny my assertions either. Playing without Gerrard, and pairing a half-fit Torres with a hapless Voronin in attack, these are some dark times.

Birmingham will be organised and hard to break down, just like they were against City. Don’t get me wrong, McLeish’s men are still an awful team to watch, but now is the perfect time for anyone to play the Scousers. They look lost.

If you follow the Premier League (or Barclays Premier League if you’re being anal, EPL if you’re American, and Premiership if you’re Alan Hansen), you may have heard the news that ‘Big Sam’ Allardyce had one or two problems with his squad last week, prior to their humiliating 5-0 defeat at Chelsea. I know what you’re thinking and, no, it actually didn’t involve El Hadj Diouf. No, in fact, last week the main problem facing the Rovers boss was dun dun duuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnn – swine flu!

Yes, swine flu. The killer virus that the Sun predicted would kill us all and result in flesh eating pigs rising up to rule planet Earth (or something along those lines. If i’m honest, I got distracted by Page 3 and didn’t properly read it). Now, as shocking as it may sound to Sky Sports News, whose little yellow ticker jumped with excitment upon hearing the story coming out of the Lancashire club, footballers really are humans after all. And humans, judging by the events of the past 12 months or so, really can contract pig flu. Big news undoubtedly.

The question that should’ve been on everyone’s lips though, and thankfully was on the lips of us over at Eddie’s Football Blog, was ‘how did swine flu suddenly spring up in the Blackburn camp?’. Once again we sent our reporter to investigate.

This time calling on our vast knowledge of time travel (acquired by watching the ‘Back To The Furture’ trilogy a couple of times), we used a Delorian, a few flashy wires, a radio alarm clock, and a shouty old man with beady eyes (who we found outside Sainsburys talking to a bin) to send our man back to last Friday night, the day before Blackburn’s game with Chelsea. Here’s what he discovered.

The pictoral evidence is conclusive. Sam Allardyce had planned it all along. He would make sure that his entire squad were so ill, that the Premier League would have no choice but to cancel their game with Chelsea. Just like his tactics, the beauty of this plan was in its simplicity and, with their six goal whalloping by Arsenal still fresh in the memory, the Blackburn gaffer couldn’t risk morale being damaged by yet another humiliating defeat.

So on Thursday he got to work, sending his chief scout to Mexico and tasking him with the job of finding finding the ‘filthiest most disease-infected pig in the country’. After a brief mis-understanding which led to a holidaying Katie Price being bundled into a potato sack, Big Sam’s scout tracked down a pig farm so filthy that even Jermain Defoe would have turned his nose up at it. Nonetheless, ‘Pablito’ the pig was adquired, promptly dressed up as Paul Robinson (as not to raise suspicion, but also to explain his hearty appetite), and then plonked on a plane bound for London.

Meeting his new oinky accomplice at Heathrow on Friday (the day before the game), Big Sam had it all planned out. He would wait until all the players were asleep at the hotel, and then take Pablito from bed to bed, infecting each player with a solitary lick to the face. By morning they would all be far too ill to play, and the game would be cancelled. It was fool-proof. He even practiced with Pablito in the afternoon, sticking pictures of every Blackburn player on the end of a Nobbly Bobbly ice lolly. The training was such a success that even the El Hadj Diouf lolly got a lick.

Come nightfall, clad in his maroon satin PJs, Big Sam was ready. This was going to work.

Now, you’ll see in the picture that the players appear to be sharing a room. Why though? Well, Rovers chairman John Williams, a man so careful at watching his pennies that Pascal Chimbonda can be counted as one of his major summer signings, wanted it that way. When he was told of the price of each room at the fancy Chelsea Village hotel, he exclaimed (presumably in a northern accent, whilst sipping a warm pint of mead) “It’s a bloody outrage! They can all bloody well share!”. And so they bloody well did (the fact that this arrangement conveniently facilitates this particular version of events is just one big coincidence. Honest.).

Anyway, the image captures a crucial moment in our tale. Having sucessfully infected David Dunn with the virus, Big Sam moves confidently onto his second victim – ogre and part-time battering ram, Christopher Samba. Pablito, although clearly hesitant of the potential volcanic reaction caused by waking a sleeping beast of this magnitude, overcomes his fear and manages to infect his second victim. Big Sam rubs his hands in glee. His plan is definitely going to work.

Then all of a sudden there’s a beeping noise, a flick of a lightswitch, and the sound of hesitant and confused Norwegian voice. “Er… boss? Er… what are you doing down there boss?”. Big Sam looks up to see a perplexed Morten Gamst Pedersen standing over him. Shit. He’s been rumbled.

You see, in the melee of ordering a disease-infected Mexican pig, dressing it up like Paul Robinson, and then hatching a masterplan to sneak around under the cover of darkness infecting his entire squad, Big Sam Allardyce forgot one crucial fact. A fact that condemned his masterplan to failure from the minute it was hatched… Morten Gamst Pedersen checks his hair in the mirror every 15 minutes. Without fail. At night he even sets his alarm clock to go off every quarter of an hour to wake him up. Just to be sure.

Poor old Big Sam. Blackburn now would have to play their game against the league leaders for sure. He’d only infected two players with swine flu and, to rub salt in the wound, those two players were his best midfielder and his best defender/striker/battering ram. In fact he’d even picked the bug up himself, after Pablito mistook him for a Nobbly Bobbly.

Unsurprisingly it finished 5-0 to Chelsea. The word on the street is that Big Sam has a new masterplan up his sleeve for when he recovers. It involves a pair of clippers, a Norwegian, and has to be completed in under 15 minutes.

As I started writing this, a small advert promoting a one of the nation’s favourite chocolate bars popped up in the corner of my screen to tell me that ‘Mr.T is watching Britain’. Quite how the bechained former A-Team aviophobic has achieved an omnipresent state, I haven’t the foggiest, but the pressure to make this piece entertaining has certainly increased ten-fold as a result. The last thing I need is a washed-up 80s actor/boxer/’style icon’ driving a tank onto my lawn, pelting me with Snickers bars, and telling me to get some nuts.

So for both your benefit, and for Mr T’s, let me get to the point of the latest ludicrously inaccurate take on one of football’s most popular stories of the last seven days. This week I have focussed my attentions on mild-mannered Scot, Sir Alex Ferguson, and his ‘spat’ with olympic athlete (and Premier League referee) Sir Alan Wiley. I used inverted commas on the word ‘spat’ (see I did it again) because I’m not sure that it really was a ‘spat’.

To me, ‘spat’ is a word that is ONLY allowed to appear in tabloid newspapers (I assume Murdoch has bought the rights to it), and must be applied when referring to a tenuously interesting account of two grown men publically slagging each other off. In this case however, it was just old whiskey-nose who was doing the slagging off, as he went on air to question the olympian’s fitness and, therefore, ability to referee a football match.

Clearly drawing inspiration from Rocky (the film, not the buscuit), Alan Wiley is a man on a mission. To prove his accuser wrong he has sought the help of the only man who knows how, head-honcho of the Officials’ Union Alan Leighton. Leighton has just the plan to force the United boss into eating his scotch-soaked words. He will take this meagre olympian and turn him into the fittest and greatest referee the world has ever seen. A mix between Pierluigi Collina and Sally Gunnell if you will, although obviously not as scary looking as that particular combination might sound.

The picture depicts a key moment in the story and, just like a grainy camera-phone picture of David Bentley snorting cocaine in a Spanish nightclub, is our first glimpse into what our protagonist has been up to during the international break. Leighton who, just like Rocky’s friend in the film, appears to inexplicably own a meat-packing plant, has our man Alan punching the carcass of an 1000lb dead cow in a bid to strengthen him up and build the character necessary to simply switch off the hairdyer, unplug it, and tuck it away in the drawer. Metaphorically speaking of course, which is why you can see a portrait of the red-faced United manager hanging on the wall, not a Remington Airwave 500. It’s all the motivation our man in black needs.

My anticipation of Wiley’s re-appearance this weekend as a hulking great powerhouse of a ref is growing. If the Rocky films have taught us anything, it is almost certainly as follows; ‘Use unconventional methods of training exceptionally hard for a short period of time, making sure that there is a cheesy 1980s soundtrack at the heart of it all, and you will be able to master anything’. I therefore fully expect that his work this week will pay off.

That being the case, what sweet justice it would be for Wiley if, in the 90th minute of United’s final game of the season, the referee called upon his newfound fitness levels to keep up with the rapid speed of James Beattie, and be there on the spot to witness and award a clear penalty to Stoke. Beattie converts the spot kick. United lose. Chelsea are giftied the title.

Fergie, be careful what you wish for.

If you want to get involved and do your own Microsoft Paint Story Of The Week, then draw it in Paint, and send it to me at eddiesfootballblog@hotmail.co.uk. If it is funny it doesn’t matter how crap the drawing is (the crapper the better actually!), and it will make it on the site! No Photoshop! 🙂

Two things. Firstly, I promise that the next ‘episode’ will not be another Spurs-based adventure into the depths of my imagination (I’m sorry but this story was too good not to feature). Secondly, I promise that not every word beginning with ‘H’ will be abbreviated as if the ‘Droopy’ lookalike was writing this himself. Most will though.

Anyway, if you are a betting man you would’ve noticed some strange goings on last week. As all football fans know, the annual ‘Managerial Sack Race’ this season ‘as been firmly between ‘Yougottafeelsorryforhim’ Pompey manager Paul Hart, and Sam Allardyce prodigé (and bluetooth headset afficionado) Phil Brown of ‘ull City.

For the benefit of those reading this article (mainly my girlfriend) who are now trying to picture two grown men at a charity sports day ‘opping along in an old potato sack, I’m sorry to ruin the wonderful image you’ve mustered up there, but i’m talking more along the lines of P45 forms.

That being the case then, Paddy Power bookmakers were mystified last week as, due to a sudden increase in the amount of punters backing ‘arry Redknapp to be the first managerial casualty in the Premier League, they found themselves slashing ‘is odds for the chop. People still kept on throwing their money at the bet though, so much so that by lunchtime on Friday all bets were off. Old droopy chops had leapt ahead of ‘art and Brown, and was starting to think of the egg and spoon race at 3pm.

Why all the money on old Redders though?

Well, the gossip-hounds on the internet suddenly all became experts on Friday, claiming to know all about it. With screennames like ‘LoverLover6969’, they queued up to spread the juicy gossip they had undoubtedly just got from the man himself. They cited tax reasons. The Inland Revenue were onto Sandra’s Swiss Bank account, they claimed. A rambler in the Himalayas had perhaps found one of ‘arry’s brown paper bags of Romanian notes from the Florin Raducioiu deal, ‘idden in a yeti’s cave. Then they ‘revealed’ that the police and all the associated press were all on their way to White Hart Lane, where Redknapp was to be cuffed and jailed.

Blimey. With such trustworthy experts on the pulse of the story, what would ‘appen next? What would the Tottenham manager do? In an exclusive to Eddie’s Football Blog, the story of the week is seen in a new light below.

As you can see, where ‘arrison Ford has gone before ‘im, ‘Arry has gone on the run from the law. He’s done well too, and despite his conspicious choice of vehicle (the yellow Robin Reliant that he lent to the set of Only Fools And Horses all those years ago), he has made it over the Atlantic to the States.

Unfortunately for old Twitcher though, Darren Bent and Lord Triesman are ‘ot on his ‘eels. Both men want to bring our hero to justice – Triesman on a mission to rid the world of corruption (in football), and Bent seeking vengeance for his wife (Redknapp’s wife that is, and the comment he made about her being a better striker than the Sunderland ‘itman). They will stop at nothing.

You’ll see that the image captures a crucial moment. The Robin Reliant ‘as chirped its last breath of fuel only miles from the Mexican border, with salvation (and perhaps another opportunity to keep Giovani Dos Santos on the bench, as Mexican national team coach) within reach.

With Triesman and Bent gaining on him, ‘arry has no option but to pull out the trump card (from the boot) – man mountain Tom ‘uddlestone, who simply lifts the three wheeler off the ground and dashes (ok, slowly ambles, the concept of Thudd ‘dashing’ anywhere is just silly) for the border.

Will ‘arry make it? Will Triesman stamp out corruption in football? Will Darren Bent wear headphones in his next television interview? Will Tom Huddlestone find the McDonalds in Mexico City?

Comments below!

If you want to get involved and do your own Microsoft Paint Story Of The Week, then draw it in Paint, and send it to me at eddiesfootballblog@hotmail.co.uk. If it is funny it doesn’t matter how crap the drawing is (the crapper the better actually!), and it will make it on the site! No Photoshop! 🙂

This week sees the launch of a new series on Eddie’s Football Blog. Like the ‘Ultimate Elevens’ series, ‘Microsoft Paint Stories Of The Week’ is more of an invitation to everyone who reads my blog* to do something fun and football related that isn’t the Soccer Saturday drinking game (glasses down back there).

Basically all you’ve got to do is take any story from the last few weeks of football news, and bring it to life via the magic of Microsoft Paint! It’s that easy, and they can be as crap as you like. In fact, the crapper the better. Send your ‘art’ through to me at eddiesfootballblog@hotmail.co.uk and I will put the funniest ones up on the site. Simples.

My first effort is an homage to Gareth Bale.

If you aren’t one for stats, or if you aren’t one for young Welsh fullbacks with immaculately sculpted hair, you may not have known that Bale went into Tottenham’s game with Burnley last Saturday having never won a game in the Premier League in 24 attempts. He was Tottenham’s unlucky charm, a poisoned chalice, an upside-down horse shoe, an… ok, you get the picture.

Anyway in a painting that throws a unique light on the situation, here he is celebrating Spurs’ 5-0 triumph, and finally smashing the monkey on his back (metaphorically speaking of course. Just so we’re clear, Gareth Bale did not kill a primate on Saturday afternoon).

You will also see that five of 1970’s camp disco group The Village People have turned up to cheer him on. They are big fans of Gareth, and especially like his hair. Actually, it appears that the Naval Officer loves Gareth’s coiffeured locks so much, that he has run onto the pitch (skillfully evading the steward’s grasp) and presented the man of the hour with a novelty comb. Marvellous.

Leave any advice for Gareth below.

If you want to get involved and do your own Microsoft Paint Story Of The Week, then draw it in Paint, and send it to me at eddiesfootballblog@hotmail.co.uk. As I said, if it is funny it doesn’t matter how crap the drawing is, and it will make it on the site! No Photoshop! 🙂

*Lest I forget, the invitation to draw your own ‘Story Of The Week’ also goes out to all of you lovely people who inexplicably ended up on Eddie’s Football Blog by typing strange word combinations such as ‘ugly boy’ and ‘Schweinsteiger Pepperami’ into Google. Whenever I look at the web search terms people have used to get here, there is always at least one person who clearly never intended to end up on the site. And if you are one of those people, welcome.

However, if you are the person who got here by searching for ‘bi-fi porn’, apologies, but I’m struggling to see how Eddie’s Football Blog can satisfy your needs!